1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to time and attendance devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a biometric time and attendance device for scanning a portion of a human epidermis, generating an epidermal topographical pattern and transmitting the epidermal topographical pattern to a host computer for determining access privileges and for updating an epidermal topographical database.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Increasingly, security problems are becoming a more noticeable part of modern life. Security was once primarily the preserve of classified government installations, but increasing losses and calamity have forced the review of security equipment and procedures for government and industry. Property losses and the theft of corporate secrets cost industry billions of dollars annually. Public safety is endangered by the ability of intruders to easily enter secured places, such as aircraft and airport buildings, without detection.
Accordingly, access control and personnel identification are becoming the object of significant expenditures by organizations seeking to identify employees, vendors and others who are to be permitted access to secured areas.
Typical access control applications include: computer centers; radioactive or biological danger areas; controlled experiments; information storage areas; airport maintenance and freight areas; drug storage areas; apartment houses and office buildings; safe deposit boxes and vaults; and computer terminal entry.
Ascertaining the identity of an individual is a common problem for any access control application. There are three typically accepted ways of establishing a person's identity: (1) a personal identification code; (2) an encoded card having identification information; or (3) examination of a physical characteristic, such as a fingerprint. Since fingerprints and other epidermal topography are unique to an individual, they provide an extremely reliable identification characteristic. Fingerprint identification has been used for many years to help solve crimes, provide positive identification for security and help to identify missing persons. In addition, physical characteristics are practical for identification use because individuals do not ordinarily object to being so identified.
Devices are available to electronically scan epidermal characteristics and to produce related data signals which can be matched to stored images in a real time identification process. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,899 discloses a fingerprint-based access control and identification apparatus which reads a human fingerprint and transmits the electronic representation of the fingerprint to a centralized image processing unit. The processing unit determines whether the individual whose fingerprint has been read is permitted access to certain areas at the specific time the fingerprint is read.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,504 shows a device for performing fingerprint identification and continuous updating of the stored information. Each time a match is made, the device removes the prior data and stores the latest fingerprint pattern. The next fingerprint identification is performed by using the latest registered identification pattern. Identification information or an identification code is not required to update the fingerprint pattern stored in memory.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,043 discloses an access control system which uses cards for storing data in the form of a barcode. The comparison of an individual's fingerprint with a fingerprint representation stored in a barcode is made directly at the access control point. The access control point decision to admit or deny access and a keyholder identifying code are sent in a report to a host computer. The time of day and the access control point location can be added to the report by the host computer. The system minimizes the contact of the intelligent terminal with the host computer rather than using a dumb terminal transmitting read data for processing by a host computer.
Although current systems provide rudimentary access control functions, there continues to be a need for an inexpensive method of controlling access to specified areas, accounting for changes in the epidermal topography in the data base, and providing a record of time and attendance of employees.